Herrmann: Pageantry of college football in the Bronx

Just this once, New York City was itself a tourist. It was a happy, willing visitor to the land of major college football, quite possibly the great American sport, and the whole trip looked like a good idea that ought to be tried again and again.

Not that New York is like the Midwesterner who gets smitten by a first taste of Broadway. The Army-Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium last night was a revival, not a debut. New York, in fact, used to be the capital of college football, when Army and Notre Dame were at their peak and playing at the old Stadium in the 1920s and 1940s.

Back then, college football needed the exposure that only New York could give. But it has been a while since New York's toes were tapping to George Gershwin and Benny Goodman (whose music was performed by the 400-member Notre Dame band at halftime). College football belongs these days to the likes of Eugene, Ore., and Boise, Idaho, and Tuscaloosa, Ala. The only Blocks of Granite at Fordham now are the ones in the stately buildings on a campus that plays football just for fun, not fame.

That never is going to change. Columbia never is going to the Fiesta Bowl, which is fine. It doesn't mean we can't have a taste of the excitement that sweeps just about every other part of the country every August through January. Give the Yankees credit for giving this a shot, reconfiguring the Stadium and hosting football.

"The appetite is tremendous," Yankees president Randy Levine said, adding that nearly 29,000 tickets have been sold for the Pinstripe Bowl, though it's bound to be freezing Dec. 30 and no one knows which Big East and Big 12 teams will be playing. "As we build, I think it's going to be very stable, very permanent . . . We expect to have three or four games a year here."

Levine was honest enough to admit that Army-Notre Dame was "not really a perfect test" because they draw well everywhere. Nonetheless, it was a delightful show before a sellout crowd of 54,251 at the Stadium - including the gray suited cadets who stood dutifully and enthusiastically in the leftfield bleachers, above what is normally the visitors' bullpen.

There was something neat in watching Notre Dame's band's dress rehearsal in Macombs Dam Park, graciously playing the Army fight song and the great Notre Dame Victory March as the subway rolled by.

It also was neat seeing Notre Dame wearing the green jerseys they pull out only for special occasions, watching Army quarterback Trent Steelman run the triple option, only to have Notre Dame snuff it in the first half. The Irish stopped Steelman short of the end zone, which was 10 yards in front of the Yankees' interlocking "NY," still painted on the grass behind home plate.

With his team leading 17-3 at halftime, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly didn't need to make a "Win one for the Gipper" speech, as Knute Rockne did against Army at the Stadium in 1928. College football, though, is as good a show now as it was back then. Better, probably. New York ought to have a regular touch of it, and vice versa.

"This place is kind of a mecca, kind of an altar of sport," said Pete Dawkins, Army's 1958 Heisman Trophy winner, who was honorary captain last night. Army's interim athletic director, Col. Sam Johnson, added, "You stand up on any one of the terraces here and you look down on this field and what you see is something that reminds you of what we played in '44, '45 and '46 against Notre Dame. It has that same feel . . . to it."

What last night showed is that Army-Notre Dame, and college football in general at the Stadium, is more than just a trip down Memory Lane. And for college football in New York, thankfully, there's a future.